Various types of media provide different content in varied formats to users. For example, movies, DVDs, video cassettes, audio cassettes, audio compact discs, and digital photographs provide various types of audio and visual content to today's consumers.
The different types of media may be created in a number of ways. For instance, two or more existing media streams are sometimes combined or mixed together to create a new media stream. The mixing of the different streams of information often creates a product having desirable characteristics with a unique appeal to various types of consumers.
Previous systems and approaches provided for the mixing of audio and visual streams of information. For instance, previous video editors provided for the mixing of different video streams, such as movies or video tape. Unfortunately, these editors often required the use of a complex user interface that employed multiple, non-intuitive instructions to facilitate the mixing. In addition, these previous approaches often relied upon non-intuitive instruction sequences to perform the mixing. Consequently, the user frequently was forced to consult with complicated manuals or seek outside advice in order to correctly complete the mixing.
All these problems with previous approaches led to the mixing requiring a substantial amount of time and effort. In addition, if performed in a commercial setting, worker efficiency was often significantly reduced. Expensive working training was also often needed in order to properly and effectively operate the editor. Even if the editor were used in a non-commercial environment, the amount of time and effort required to create desirable results frequently led to user frustration with the system and the mixing experience.